


1-2 Laser Light Cannon

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: A magical comet hurtles toward Beach City, and Steven must dig through his dad's collection of old junk, and the past, to find the weapon that can save the town.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Kudos: 18





	1-2 Laser Light Cannon

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate universe. See series page for more information.

Late afternoon was turning into the pink shade of early evening in the sleepy seaside town of Beach City. Steven Universe and Amethyst, collectively known as the Crystal Gems, were running from the Beach to the Boardwalk. They reached the counter of Beach Citywalk Fries right as the proprietor Mr. Fryman was closing shop.

“Hey Fryman!” Steven greeted him from a far, and as he reached the serving window he slapped his palms on the counter and ordered: “Give me the bits!”

Mr. Fryman turned the sign on the window to show “closed” right as Steven surprised him. “Steven! We’re closed.”

“Aww, what?” Steven couldn’t believe he missed his chance for frybits. But Amethyst was experienced in the ways of the world, and she slammed her fists on the counter and said: “Give ‘em the bits!” Steven laughed at her antics. Amethyst kept banging on the counter while chanting “the BITS, the BITS, the BITS” and eventually Steven joined her and started chanting and hitting his fists on the counter too.

Mr. Fryman couldn’t think of a way to get them to stop and go away other than giving them what they wanted. “Okay, okay! Take it easy on the counter, will ya?” He said and went to cook the frybits for Steven. Steven and Amethyst shouted “Yes!” and high-fived.

As he was getting the bits from the fryer, Mr. Fryman called to Steven across the shop and said with a smile: “I can give you actual fries if you want.”

“Just the bits, please” Steven grinned, and Mr. Fryman handed him the bag of bits and Steven took it with a “thanks!” As they were heading off, Steven and Amethyst took turns eating greasy handfuls of frybits.

The sunset had progressed quite a bit while they were on their fry-errand, and between handfuls of bits Steven mused out loud: “Ah, sunset, my favorite time of day. When the sun goes down, and the second sun gets bigger and bigger in the sky.”

Amethyst burst out laughing, spitting frybits everywhere. “Yeah, that big hot second su—aaaaaah!“ She looked up in the sky and yelled in alarm as she saw ‘the second sun’ Steven was talking about. There in the pink sky of the sunset rested a round, yellow device. “Oh no, what is _that_ doing here?” she freaked. And before Steven even managed to get a “what is it” out of his frybits-filled mouth, Amethyst grabbed him, so suddenly that he dropped his bits. Amethyst hoisted Steven above her head and ran towards the beach, while Steven could only flail and feebly yell “my bits!”

Amethyst ran home to the beach house, dropped an astonished Steven in the kitchen and ran inside her room in the temple. In the time it took for Steven to get up off the floor, Amethyst was running out of her room again, carrying a telescope. She ran outside, and Steven ran after her.

He caught up to her on the beach where she was looking at the sky through the telescope. “I had no idea these things were so huge,” she muttered to herself.

“Amethyst!” Steven yelled. Amethyst looked up from the telescope as Steven reached her side. “What’s going on? Can I see?” Steven peered into the telescope. The device was a huge, round, meteor-like orb and as Steven was watching it through the telescope, the cream-coloured covering opened like an eyelid, revealing an orange body with a red aperture-like iris.

“Woah. It's a giant eyeball! Awesome!” Steven exclaimed.

“Not awesome!”Amethyst countered. “It’s a Red Eye!” She knew what it was and she was freaking out.

“A Red Eye?!” Steven picked up on Amethyst’s panic without fully understanding. “It’s going to infect us all!”

“That’s pink eye, Steven,” Amethyst corrected and couldn’t stop herself from laughing. Steven was such a goofball. But then she remembered that he really didn’t realise how serious a thing a Red Eye was. “It’s going to crash into Beach City and crush us, along with a bunch of humans! We have to stop it.” She explained.

“What are we going to do?” Steven asked.

“Rose would always just blast them with her Light Cannon,” Amethyst mused.

“My mom?” Steven said quietly. Amethyst spoke very rarely of Rose Quartz and he desperately wanted to know everything about her.

Amethyst scrunched her eyes shut and pressed her head with her hands, thinking. “Ugh, if Rose were here, this would be so easy!” She moaned.

“Where is the Light Cannon?” Steven asked, trying to help.

“I dunno, it’s missing. We need a different solution.” Amethyst muttered, still trying to think.

“If it belonged to my mom, I bet my dad knows where it is! He can help us save the day! Huh? Eh?!” Steven said, excited that he had come up with an idea. He didn’t even notice Amethyst’s lack of enthusiastic response.

Amethyst put her hand on Steven’s shoulder. “Rose wouldn’t have left it with Greg. Your dad is kind of a mess, Steven.” Steven looked at her shocked – Amethyst was _not_ one to talk. “I’m just sayin’, even if Rose did leave it with him, he probably broke it, or lost it, or dropped it in the ocean by now,” Amethyst tried to explain her reasoning.

“No way,” Steven replied, still fully confident that his dad would be able to help. “I’m sure he’s just keeping it somewhere safe. I’ll go ask him.”

Amethyst was already distracted, she was drifting along the beach, trying to think of a different solution. “Some kind of a projectile... A catapult?”

“Uhh... I’m gonna go,” Steven said to Amethyst’s back. “...Okay, good luck...” came the half-hearted reply.

\- - -

Steven made his way to where he knew his dad would be: at the car wash. And sure enough, the Mr. Universe -van was parked outside It’s A Wash. Steven went to knock on the back doors of the van.

“Dad, it’s me!” Steven yelled while continuing to bang the van doors. “Dad, are you in there?” Steven slammed his entire body against the door, yelling “Wake! Up! We have to save! The! WORLD!” 

Hearing no indication that his dad was waking up inside the van, Steven decided to pull out the big guns. He climbed on the roof of the van and began stomping on the roof. “Dad!” Steven yelled as he jumped up and down. He messed up the landing of a jump and fell on his back on the roof of the van – tripping the car alarm when he did so. Steven rose up to lean on his elbows and smiled expectantly.

A bald head with a bearded face emerged from the van, followed by the rest of an angry Greg Universe, who burst out of the van brandishing a weapon. “Who’s there?” He yelled. “I have a waffle iron!” He looked around and waved the waffle iron in the air, trying to appear threatening in his tank top and pajama pants, his long mullet swaying in the wind.

“Dad it’s me!” Steven yelled from on top of the van, over the blaring of the car alarm. Greg looked up to see where the voice was coming from, still groggy from being woken up so rudely. He dropped the waffle iron and turned the car alarm off with a beep of his car keys. “Steven?” Greg said, and Steven jumped down from the car roof and ran over to hug his dad.

After the hug Greg looked at his son and said: “I almost waffled your face! What are you doing up so late?”

Steven smiled. “What do you mean? The sun just went down an hour ago.”

“Oh,” Greg said and blushed. “Heh, err, it was a... slow day at the car wash.” He rubbed the back of his head and smiled. “Anyway, what’s up? Just needed to see your old man, pal around, learn some lessons about life?” He asked and did a little jig with his fists to illustrate palling around.

“No!” Steven answered loudly. “I need the light cannon that belonged to Mom, to blow up the eyeball!”

“Eyeball?” Greg straightened up, confused.

“That!” Steven pointed at the Red Eye in the sky.

Greg looked at the sky and saw the Red Eye and the distant, screaming figure of Amethyst flying towards it, hit it, and fall into the ocean.

“Wait, is that a magical thing? I have an agreement with Amethyst to not get involved with magic stuff. It... it could be dangerous or interfere with what’s left of my hair,” Greg said nervously while rubbing his balding head.

“But she needs Mom’s cannon. You've gotta know where it is, like a cave dungeon or a cloud fortress, or in a clam at the bottom of the ocean!” Steven exclaimed, getting excited at the prospect of getting to explore a bottom-of-the-ocean clam.

Greg threw the waffle iron back in the van and closed the doors. “Well, I don’t know about all that. But I have an idea where it might be.”

They got in the van and drove to the U-Stor. Greg parked and led Steven to his storage unit.

“A magical storage unit!” Steven exclaimed enthusiastically and ran ahead.

Greg chuckled. “Ha, not exactly. But some would say there’s magic inside,” he said and winked. Steven stared at him without a single shred of an idea what he might mean. “It’s just a shed I use to keep things that don’t fit in the van,” Greg explained. “If it’s anywhere, it’ll be in here.” He unlocked the storage unit and raised the door open.

The storage unit was dark and filled to the brim with boxes and old furniture. Steven stepped closer and tried to move some boxes to get a better look, but the boxes collapsed, making it even harder to get in. Steven realised he needed to get tactical.

“If I’m going in there, I’m gonna need some gear,” he mused and looked around. On the floor of the shed he found a flashlight and a sock, and he tied the flashlight on his head with the sock. He also tied an electric cord around his waist and gave the other end to his dad. ”Here I go!” Steven declared and entered the storage unit as Greg wished him luck.

Steven crawled under and between boxes until he found enough space to stand up.”Woah, cool! It’s like a dad museum!” He looked around in wonder at all the priceless treasures around him, the beam of the flashlight illuminating which ever way he turned his head. There was a painting of a cat tangled in yarn, old sound systems, arcade games, decorative figurines, old mattresses... Steven pushed on through the mattresses to the next chamber of artefacts.

“There it is!” Steven ran to the cannon and started to lift it but lost his balance and ended up pinned down by his loot, only to discover that it was actually a bag of golf clubs. “Do you golf?” Steven asked, confused.

Greg was crawling behind him, following the electric cord and replied, “eh, I’d like to think of myself as someone who would golf... eventually.”

Steven put the golf clubs down, looked around and spotted the cannon. “Hm? Yes!” He ran to it, brushed off the stuff resting on top and found out that it was another imposter. “A drum.” He walked off, but returned to give the drum a tap and then ran deeper to the storage unit, jumping over a heap of stuff.

He rummaged through a pile of stuff, discarding various vaguely-cannon-shaped objects while muttering “no... no... no...” Then he gasped! “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! Is this—“ He pulled out a t-shirt cannon and fired it. He ran to catch the projectile and read what was written on it. “Buy T-shirt Cannons?” As he moved the t-shirt to throw it aside he noticed a box full of CDs. “Hey, there’s a bunch of copies of your old CD!” Steven called back to his dad.

“Huh,” Greg shook his head. “Oh, man, I couldn’t give those things away. You know, before I ran the car wash, when I was a one-man band, I traveled the whole country.”

Steven was reading the liner notes of the CD. “I know, Dad,” he said with a chuckle. He put the CD in his pocket and continued looking for the cannon.

Greg continued his story. “When I came to play a concert here in Beach City, no one showed up except—“

“An ALLIGATOR!” Steven yelled, joking.

“No, it was your mother,” Greg corrected.

“Hahaha, I know,” Steven said and kept crawling on all fours deeper into the shed.

“And we were always together after that. Until she gave up her physical form to bring you into the world.” Greg was lost in his memories. “I don’t know what a magic lady like her ever saw in a plain old dope like me.”

Steven felt something crumble under his knee. He backed up and realised he had broken a framed photo. It depicted Greg with a hot dog poking out of his mouth next to a tall, plump woman with huge pink curly hair smiling serenely: Steven’s mother Rose. “Uh, Dad, I broke a photo” he admitted his guilt.

“It’s okay buddy,” Greg called to the darkness as he backed out of the shed. “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.”

A faint pink glow caught Steven’s attention.

“Huh?” Steven gasped. ”The light cannon!”

Greg was standing outside looking at Red Eye, and muttering “Oh boy, that thing’s giving me the willies.” He scratched his chest, trying to ease his discomfort. Steven’s yell interrupted him.

“Dad, I found it!”

“Really?” Greg was actually genuinely surprised.

Steven tied the electric cord around the cannon and called to Greg: “Get the van!” Greg tied the other end of the cable to the bumper of the van and started the engine. He pulled and all the contents of the storage unit spilled to the tarmac, along with the laser light cannon.

Steven was the last thing to come out of the shed when he ran to Greg, yelling, “This thing could save the city, we've gotta get it to the beach!”

“How?” Greg yelled back. “It’s too big for the van.” A small four-wheeled wagon had become dislodged from the pile of shed stuff and wheeled towards them. Steven and Greg watched it roll past and thought of the same thing.

They tied the wagon to the back of the van and lifted the cannon onto it. It took all of their strength to move the gem weapon. “Easy does it,” Greg muttered, not fully believing in the viability of this plan. They placed the cannon carefully onto the wagon and it immediately crushed the bottom of the wagon with its weight. Steven and Greg looked at the result and then each other, and got in the van without saying a word.

Driving with the cannon in a busted up little wagon scraping behind them was not the idealest of situations, but the cannon was now moving towards the direction of the beach. Steven kept an eye on it through the back window.

“Is it gonna be okay?” He asked. Greg was tense from concentrating on driving, but glanced at his son, shrugged and made a doubtful “iunno” noise.

“If every pork chop were perfect—“ Greg said, and Steven enthusiastically finished the thought: “We wouldn’t have hot dogs!” Their little family meme seemed to help Steven, but Greg was still worried. As they came around the lighthouse hill and saw the beach, they also saw the Red Eye again. It was a lot bigger.

Greg got more nervous at the sight of it. “That thing’s getting huge, it's freaking me out,” he admitted, because if there was something the Universes didn’t do it was hiding how they felt.

“Can’t the van go any faster?” Steven asked.

“This is faster,” Greg replied, panic creeping into his voice. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor but their speed didn’t really increase.

“Don’t worry,” Steven said. “Come on, let’s put on your CD.” He pulled out from his pocket the CD he had picked up from the storage.

Greg felt embarrassed (which was distracting him a little from the fear of imminent destruction). “What? Really? Come on, you’ve heard it.”

Steven chuckled “You come on,” and inserted the disc to the van’s sound system.

Greg blushed as the first track of the disc started to play. Steven didn’t notice, he was too into it. He bobbed up and down on his seat and then sang along to the song. Seeing his enthusiasm, Greg felt still embarrassed but also a little proud.

The music blared as they drove the rest of the way to the beach. The sky had turned a deep dark red and the seawater was miles from the shore. Greg pulled up next to a catapult Amethyst had been using to launch herself at the Red Eye. She washed up on shore, pepping herself as she prepared for a new go.

“I think it’s cracking, just a little—“ She stopped as she saw Steven jump out of the van and the thing the van was dragging behind. “Is that... ?” She didn't dare hope.

“Hey, Amethyst!” Steven yelled.

Amethyst gasped as she saw it really was the cannon. “He really had it! We’re SAVED!!!” But her celebration was cut short as the Red Eye had finally got close enough that its gravity began to pull things off the ground and towards it. The air was filling with debris.

“We have to use it now!” Steven yelled.

“I don’t know how it works, it was Rose’s!” Amethyst yelled back in a panic.

“Dad, how do we use it?” Steven asked his dad. Greg shrugged and made the “iunno” noise again.

Amethyst grabbed Steven by the shoulder and turned him to face her. “Steven, this is serious,” she said. Then she realised, “The gem. You have Rose’s gem! That’s it!” She picked Steven up and rubbed his whole body gem-first against the cannon. “Ah, come on!” she exclaimed in frustration when nothing seemed to happen.

“I don’t think it will work,” Steven squeaked in Amethyst’s grip. “Ugh, I’ll fire me again then,” Amethyst ran to the catapult to prepare to launch it again.

The gravitational pull was getting stronger and started to pull the van, which in turn was pulling the cannon. Greg jumped to unhook the cannon from the van. “I got this!” He declared in triumph when he got the van and cannon disconnected. However, the van continued to get pulled, which in turn was now pulling Greg who was holding on to the cable. “Ugh, wait, nope, maybe I don’t!” His focus shifted to trying to stop the van from getting pulled into the sea.

Steven was still hugging the cannon. “Please work, unlock, activate, go, please!” He tried to coax the cannon into firing. He banged it with his fists. “Everyone’s counting on you, you can’t just be useless! I know you can help!”

“It’s okay, Steven,” Greg called to him from the van. “We’ll figure out something else, something even better.”

“R-r-r-right,” Steven said and fought his tears. “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.”

The cannon activated. Steven looked up at the barrel of the cannon that was beginning to glow with a deep pink color. It was incredibly beautiful. Sections of the cannon began to open up like rose petals. The one Steven was holding onto knocked him off the cannon as it opened. But still he could only look on in astonishment.

“It’s working!” Amethyst yelled, also staring at the unfolding cannon in amazement.

The cannon stood like a freshly bloomed rose on the sand, until the trunnion popped and the cannon fell flat onto the ground. Everybody gasped, and Steven ran to the front of the cannon and began to try to lift it, to aim it at the Red Eye.

“Steven!” Amethyst yelled and ran to him to help. Together they lifted the cannon to the correct angle and aimed true, right as the cannon fired a beam of pure pink light into the air. The light took the shape of a rose with its thorns and bloom opening up and then split into innumerous arrows being led by a figure of a beautiful woman. The beam struck the Red Eye right into the iris, breaking it into a thousand pieces. Everyone was speechless at the sight.

Everything was still for a moment as the intruding force of gravity had been destroyed. Then all the debris that had been pulled in the air as well as the red shrapnel from the destroyed Red Eye began to rain down onto the city and the sea, destroying buildings and parts of the Boardwalk.

“Steven, you just saved most of Beach City!” Amethyst celebrated.

Steven looked at the destruction in horror. He saw Mr. Fryman stand in front of his fryshop looking at the crater in the Boardwalk. “Sorry about that!” Steven yelled to him.

“What?” Came the reply of the man in shock.

“How did you get it to work?” Amethyst asked.

“I just said that thing that Dad always says,” Steven answered.

“That thing about hot dogs?” Amethyst glanced at Greg.

Greg was tearing up. ”Rose...” he mumbled, astonished. In that moment he really felt her love and missed her so much.

His tender moment was interrupted by the tide coming back in after being pulled away from the beach by the Red Eye. Amethyst, Steven and Greg all got washed up to the knees. They laughed, but Greg stopped short as he was his van float by.

“My van!” He cried out.

“It’s okay, Dad, if every pork chop were perfect—“ Steven said with a smile, but was interrupted by Greg yelling, “I LIVE in there!” He ran after the van and waded deeper into the water.

“Wait up!” Steven yelled and followed him.

“Oh geez, wait, wait, wait!” Greg tried to coax the van to not wash out to sea, gingerly wading closer with Steven close behind. Amethyst just laughed, relieved that the Red Eye was destroyed.


End file.
